Theory behind Pancakes

My last post was a really bad recipe.  If you tried to make pancakes from it, you'd probably come out with something really terrible.  In this post, I'm going to write about my theory behind good pancakes, and let the reader figure out his or her own method.

Gluten
Pancakes need the right amount of structure.  Too little and they crumble and fall apart.  Too little gives you rubbery, chewy frisbees.  The right amount of eggs is crucial to keeping the pancakes from falling apart, but that's pretty easy.  Use 1 egg for a small batch, 2 for a large...there's not much to mess up.  Gluten production is another story.

You want to limit the production of gluten as much as possible.  This means no mixing!  Well, okay, you have to integrate the ingredients together.  But, you need to limit the mixing between the flour and the wet ingredients.

The most obvious trick is one that's used in any muffin-style food.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then only combined as the last step.  Thus, you can beat the eggs, combine the flours, mix in spices, etc, without creating gluten.  Learning this trick is key to so many flour-based dishes.

The other trick I love is to use cornmeal.  Cornmeal is heavier than white wheat flour.  But, if you cook it first, and then mix it completely into the wet ingredients, it'll actually combine with the wheat flour to reduce the amount of gluten produced when mixed.  It sort of sits between the flour granules and prevents gluten production.  Plus, it's a whole grain, it has a nice crunchiness to it, and it has a warm flavor.

Cooking Cornmeal
The purpose of cooking cornmeal is to soften the grains and to release the starch.  Doing this is easy.  Simply combine one part of corn meal to two parts of liquid, usually 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 cup milk.  Mix well and microwave for 2 minutes.  Remove, stir again, then microwave another 1 minute.  Continue this until you have something like very plain grits.  Then, stir very well and add some more milk to cool down.  Slowly add this glop to your wet ingredients, making sure to stir vigorously so that you don't cook the eggs.

Additions
Plain white pancakes are great, but who doesn't love adding some additional flavor?  My kids' favorite is, predictably, chocolate chips.  But, they also like the other classics; blueberries, bananas and strawberries. Oh, they hate one classic which I love, walnuts.  The key is mixing these ingredients in correctly.  I split them into

• Dry Whole - walnuts and chocolate chips
• Wet Whole - blueberries, strawberries
• Dry Integrated - Chocolate powder, cinnamon, ginger
• Wet Integrated - Bananas, almond extract

Dry whole ingredients need to be dusted with flour before being mixed into the batter.  This is to make it easier for them to bind to the batter, so they don't sit on the top or fall to the bottom, where they will burn.  Simply tossing them with the dry ingredients before mixing the wet and dry will accomplish this.  Since the ingredients are dry, you don't have to worry about being gentle with them, or causing more gluten production.

Wet whole ingredients tend to burst and bleed their color into the rest of the pancake.  Blueberries are the perfect example.  As long as they stay whole, they are beautiful in the pancake.  As soon as they burst, the color oxidizes and causes nasty green splotches.  They key here is to add them after you put the batter on the griddle.  Yes, they'll sort of sit on top, but after you flip the batter will engulf them.  There's a little danger of burning, but since they tend to be lower-fat it's not as bad.  And, the wetness tends to reduce burning.  Walnuts and chocolate taste nasty when burnt, but blueberries kind of sizzle and brown, not burn.

Dry integrated ingredients can be treated as a normal dry ingredient.  Simply mix with the flour before adding the wet.

Wet integrated ingredients can be treated as normal wet ingredients, but extra attention should be paid to integrating them fully.  Bananas particularly will burn and leave weird lumps if you don't mash them and really beat them in.  Extracts and flavors are easier to deal with, but it still makes sense to give an extra effort to mix them well.

Leavening
Pancakes are supposed to be fluffy.  They are never fluffy enough.  The ideal is to be like a cloud, each bite delivering a soft sponge of flavor.  You accomplish this through reducing gluten and increasing leavening.

Baking powder requires a ph-neutral mixture.  You can get decent leavening by using only ingredients of PH-7 and a bunch of baking powder.  But, you'll get a lot of extra lift from using an acid with baking soda.  Baking soda is basic, so combining it with an acid produces bubbles.  Any grade school kid has combined baking soda with vinegar to make an eruption of bubbles.  It's those bubbles you want.  Baking soda will make far more bubbles than baking powder, because it's a fresh preparation.

This is why my recipe calls for an acidified milk solution.  This is also why buttermilk pancakes are so awesome.  Buttermilk is a cultured milk, similar to a loose yogurt.  In fact, you can substitute milk+yogurt instead of buttermilk.  The culture will digest some of the milk sugars and convert them into acids, similar to the way cultures digest grape sugars to make vinegar.

The thickness of a cultured milk has another benefit.  Since it's thick, you require less white wheat flour to make a thick batter.  Less wheat flour = less gluten = a fluffier pancake.

You can make a very decent substitute by thickening with an acid, like vinegar or lemon juice.  But, for the acid to thicken the milk, the milk has to be slightly warm.  So, microwave your milk until it's warm, but not hot, then add a teaspoon or so of lemon juice or vinegar.  The taste of the acid won't be noticeable in the end, but maybe stay away from flavored vinegars like balsamic and rice. 

The amount of baking soda should be in rough proportion to the amount of acid.  Generally, a tablespoon of lemon juice should get matched to a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.  That's roughly equivalent to a cup of buttermilk, or a 1/4 cup of yogurt.

Fat
We all want to reduce the amount of fat we eat.  It's high in calories and the wrong kinds of fat are bad for you.  But, it's kind of necessary here.

Fat will coat the flour granules, making it more difficult for them to absorb water.  This reduces the amount of gluten produced when mixed.  As well, it aids in browning, keeps the pancake from sticking, and tastes good.  Use a good vegetable oil.  People are afraid to use canola oil because it becomes carcinogenic at high temps, but it's fine here because the pancake will never get all that hot.

I think that's it!
Dave

Pancakes

Well...not pancakes, griddle cakes.  Why?  Because a pan is a terrible tool for making pancakes.  Electric griddles make the best pancakes.  They're also awesome for fish, steaks, burgers, eggs, firm polenta and burning yourself horribly.

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-07030-20-Inch-Electric-Griddle/dp/B001078UCC/ref=lh_ni_t_

$20 is a bargain.

I make pancakes for my kids on average of about once a week.  I always make them from scratch and I never measure.  They always come out well, but sometimes better than others.

You can use a whole grain with this.  I like cornmeal or whole wheat.  With cornmeal, you have to cook it first.  Put 1/2 cup cornmeal in a microwave safe container, cover with milk and nuke for 3 minutes or so.  Take out, stir and nuke for another minute.  Add the cornmeal to the wet ingredients, but the wheat flour to the dry.

Here's what I hesitate to call a "recipe".

Papa's Griddlecakes
Preparation
Clean griddle, even if you think it's clean already
Plug it in and start it heating at about 350degrees
If your griddle is old or heavily used like mine, you may need to hit it with some spray-oil.
You'll need 2 mixing bowls for this, one large and one medium

Ingredients

• Some all purpose white flour, maybe 1 to 1.5 cups
• 1/4 cup-ish whole-grain cornmeal or 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• An egg, maybe two
• A couple tablespoons of sugar
• 1 tbs-ish baking powder
• 1/2 tsp-ish baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk or 1/4cup plain yogurt and 1 cup milk.  Or, you can warm milk in a microwave and add some lemon juice.  Just make a slightly acidic, slightly thickened milk-like substance.
• Cinnamon
• Ground ginger, if you like
• 1/4-ish of veggie oil
• Salt
• Some vanilla
• Optionally blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas or nuts

Directions
The Dry:
In the large mixing bowl, add in the all purpose and whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt.  Mix completely.  If you want, you can sift them together to get a fluffier pancake.
If you are using chocolate chips, add them to now, and stir in completely.  You want the chips to be coated with flour, which will make them suspend in the pancake instead of sinking to the bottom and burning on the griddle.

The Wet:

In the medium bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar.
If using bananas, smoosh them up them add them and beat until smooth enough
Mix in the acidified milk.
Wait until the griddle is heated
Pour the wet on top of the dry
Stir carefully to combine, stirring only as little as you need to.  The more you stir, the more gluten you will create, which makes for a chewy, flat pancake, which is never good.

Cooking:
I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to spoon out the mixture onto the griddle.
If you're using blueberries, add them to the mixture only after it's been spooned out to the griddle.
You can tell that the side is done when the edges firm up and it begins to smell like breakfast.
Flip and cook until done

I  normally will cook one small one at first, then adjust salt, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar if needed.

Flayrah

Winter is time for stews and braises.  There's nothing better than a thick sauce on top of fork-tender meat.  Well, okay, there's lots of things better than that.  Chocolate, smoky scotch and a large yearly bonus.  But, stews are good, too.

I cooked rabbit last night.  The fine folks at Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meat (29th and Depew in the Denver Highlands district) hooked me up!  I also got fresh eggs, a smoked chicken and a fresh chicken.  The fresh chicken was too young, and I haven't opened the smoked chicken's packaging yet.  But, the eggs and rabbit were great!


Rabbit is really tough.  There really is no quick method of cooking rabbit.  But, its mild taste and white flesh makes it suitable for almost all slow, wet cooking methods.  I chose a standard braise.


I happened to have some really nice sweet potatoes on hand, plus some organic celery and carrots.  The bottle of red wine had been open a few days, so I no longer trusted it, so I went with chicken broth instead.  Honestly, with the long cooking time, I think the wine would have been overpowering, so I'm glad I made that choice.

Braised Bunny
Ingredients

• One rabbit, skinned and cleaned
• 2 cups of potato (russet, yukon or sweet), cubed
• 2 carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons rubbed sage
• vegetable oil (or goose fat, if you're into that)
• salt and pepper
• water

Preparation
Butcher the rabbit, but keep the inedible parts (neck, breast)
Salt and pepper the rabbit pieces
Prepare the carrots, celery and onions as a standard mire poix
Dice garlic
Combined flour and sage on a plate

Directions
Dredge the rabbit pieces in the flour/sage mixture.  Make sure to knock off as much excess flour as possible.
Heat the oil in the pan
Fry the bunny, on both sides, until nicely browned
Remove the bunny to a plate
Add the mire poix to the pan, salt and cook until soft
Deglaze the pan with chicken broth
Add the potatoes and toss to combine
Put the rabbit back in the pan, with any juices on the plate
Add 1/2 chicken broth, 1/2 water until the liquid covers about 1/2 the rabbit
Cover and cook for 90 minutes
Remove the cover and let it cook down until thick

Serve with noodles

Quinoa failure!

I've been trying to work with Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wha").  My first dish, which was a take on mushroom risotto, turned out well.  Quinoa has the unique property that the outside stays crunchy while the inside softens.  That gave it a delightful "pop" when first chewed, almost like a good caviar.  It's incredibly healthy, and I've been looking to broaden the grains I eat.  So, I set out to make more.

I tried a breakfast dish, based on Southern Cheese Grits.  I love cheese grits, even if they're not the healthiest breakfast.  I always use whole-grain, coarse-grind corn meal.  That makes it healthier, but really I choose that style because it tastes best.  I can't imagine how Aunt Jemima convinced the whole southern United States that removing the germ benefits the consumer at all.  It's all about shelf-life, damn taste and nutrition. 

Quinoa doesn't have this problem.  It's all about healthiness, damn the taste and shelf-life.  Consequently, it has a raw flavor to it.  To combat this, I used a technique that I developed with corn-meal.  Toast the grain in a little bit of butter before cooking.  Aside from that, I used the standard recipe.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Quinoa.  Quinoa doesn't have a lot of starch.  It's mostly protein.  So, it didn't thicken right, and the fat from the butter coated the kernels and prevented them from absorbing water.  The dish took forever to cook and had a weird taste.  Normally, cheese works really well with grits because the starch from the corn mixes with the cheese to allow it to blend with the liquid.  But, since quinoa is so high in protein, there wasn't enough starch to allow this to happen.  The cheese clumped. 

Eww!

I can't seem to get away from latke

I'm Jewish, but not very Jewish.  I'm Jewish enough to not take part in Christmas celebrations, but not enough to keep kosher or even go to synagogue on high holy days.  I make latke not because I'm Jewish, but for the same reason I make Indian dal, southern grits or any of my bazillion Italian dishes.  They taste good, are healthy and happen to use up ingredients that I have on hand.  I happen to have a ton of really tasty organic russet potatoes, some zucchinis and onions.  I'm sick of mashed potatoes, so I've been making latke.

I am not a cultural purist.  I believe that all recipes should start with the question "what do I have that's fresh, but might not make it to the next time I cook?"  Latke are a perfect example.  Traditional latke has potatoes, onions and eggs.  That's it.  But, I have zucchini I need to use, and maybe some leafy greens.  Maybe I'm just craving carrots or calamata olives or really anything at all.  Latke is a blank slate on which to build dinner.

Here's what I made a few nights ago

Latke with Zucchini
Ingredients

• 2 medium russet potatoes, peeled
• 2 small zucchinis
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 medium onion
• 1 egg
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil

Directions
Shred the potatoes
Shred the zucchinis, too, but be careful not to shred any of the seeds
Finely slice the onion
Dice the garlic
Toss all of this in a bowl, salt and pepper liberally and toss to combine
Beat the egg in another bowl
Let the veggies sit for a few minutes to allow the salt to do its workWhen there is a pool of liquid at the bottom of the bowl, rinse and strain the veggies
Squeeze the veggies to remove all liquid
Toss with the egg

Put a saute pan on the stove at medium-high heat with enough oil to coat the bottom
Add 1/4 of the mixture at a time to the pan, making sure not to crowd it
Cook for 2 minutes on each side, then remove to a drying rack

I love Barramundi

Barramundi is a sweet, mild white fish.  It originated in south-east Asia, particularly Vietnam.  It's interesting today because it's part of a new movement for more sustainable fish farming.  HuffPo has a great article on it.  But, besides the benefits to the environment, Barramundi is just a great tasting, easy to cook, easy to store fish.

Barramundi comes frozen in your supermarket's fish freezers.  I've found it at my local Safeway.  Hopefully, it'll be showing up in more markets as its popularity increases.

Barramundi with White Wine, Butter and Capers
It's my belief that fish should taste good in this recipe.  If it doesn't, it's not going to be useful for the vast majority of standard fish recipes.  Look at tuna for a great example.  I love seared Ahi Tuna!  But, tuna tastes terrible in a white wine, butter and capers sauce.  And, tuna is terrible in stew, breaded and fried, battered and deep fried, rolled into a roulette or prepared in any of the other popular fish recipes.  Thus, my first test of Barramundi was this time-tested recipe.

Ingredients

• One nice fillet of Barramundi
• 1 tbs capers
• 2 pats of butter (2 tsp)
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 shallot 
• 1 clove garlic, very finely diced
• 1 lemon, zested and cut into slices
• Salt and pepper

Preparation and Notes
The wine should be a good one.  If you can't drink it, don't cook with it.  Okay, white wine is gross and should never be drank, even the "good" stuff.  But, try to find something less gross.

I, personally, don't mind using lemons that have been zested.  But, some people don't like the funky white pith showing.  Honestly, you don't need a lot of zest, so try to zest only a strip and use the rest of the lemon as wedges.  Or, heck, just use two lemons.

Instructions
Finely dice the shallots and zest the lemon.  Chop the lemon zest to make sure there are no large chunks.
Defrost the fish
Sprinkle the fish liberally with salt and pepper.
Put one pat butter and 1 tsp olive oil in a pan and put the pan on medium-high heat
Cook the butter until it stops bubbling
Cook the fish in the butter/oil until browned
Flip and cook the fish until browned on the other side
Remove the fish to a plate
Add the shallots and garlic and cook lightly
Add the lemon zest
Add the wine and deglaze
Squeeze a lemon slice in and stir
Toss in the capers and stir
Toss in the remaining pat of butter, swirling around until the sauce thickens (this is called "mounting the sauce", also known as Monte Beurre)
Pour the sauce over the fish, and (if you can handle the taste) serve with the remaining bottle of wine.